(CNN) - At a time when large majorities of Americans support the stay-at-home orders that their governors have issued to keep them safe, President Donald Trump once again stepped into the role of rabble-rouser on Friday by siding with the small group of agitators who turned up at Michigan's state Capitol the previous day to protest Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer's stringent stay-at-home order.

Though a mere 400 to 700 people joined the protest -- some of them armed -- in a critical swing state of nearly 10 million people, Trump once again gambled that the smart political play was to back the fiery few rather than worrying about how he might alienate the many middle-of-the-road voters in the Great Lakes State who remain concerned about the coronavirus' ravages of their state.

t was the classic play to the base that Trump has mastered, stirring the fealty of his most loyal supporters and stoking the controversy that he thrives on -- even if it meant ignoring his own administration's recommendations on social distancing to support a demonstration where few wore masks and even fewer stayed the recommended six feet from one another. In the past, his gambles have had few political consequences -- most memorably when he described a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville as having "very fine people on both sides."

But these are very different, somber times and Trump seems to believe he doesn't need to adapt his political strategy, even as he looks toward a difficult reelection campaign against former Vice President Joe Biden, who is running as a uniter rather than a divider.